Sustainable laboratories

My group has a generally good culture of taking care of our planet. Incoming group members soon become aware of this and fit in with the ethos.

Experienced researcher, academia, Germany

Section two of our report shows that most researchers are aware of the potential environmental impact of their research and are taking steps towards reducing it.

• 79% agreed that they know how their actions have an impact on the environment
• 84% agreed that they would like to do more to reduce the impact of their day-to-day scientific work on the environment
• 63% have made changes in the last two years to reduce the environmental impact of their research activities, or those of their research group, team or department

In addition to being motivated by environmental sustainability, other motivations included:

• reducing costs (63%)
• greater effectiveness or efficiency (58%)
• required by employer (11%)

I regularly go through the labs and switch off equipment or close fume hoods and remind my students to do so too.

Experienced researcher, academia, China

Section three of our report shows that researchers want to reduce the environmental impact of their day-to-day scientific work, and the majority are already trying to do so

However, there is a wide variation in the frequency and extent to which people are taking action. There are significant uncertainties, challenges, and trade-offs in making change happen. There are also many opportunities yet to be realised. 

We asked "Which of the following measures do you, or does your group, team or department use to reduce the environmental impact of your work?". (Questions 11 and 12, RSC Sustainable Laboratories Researcher Survey 2021.)

Question 11 asked respondents about their daily actions.

Question 12 asked about research design and planning

The survey questions in the table above provide a set of concrete starting points. They do not represent actions that reduce environmental impact in every situation. In some cases, there may be trade-offs or unintended consequences that mean they are not more environmentally sustainable overall. For example:

• It is not always obvious without a life cycle assessment whether one solvent is ‘more environmentally benign’ than another.
• It is not possible or necessarily energy efficient to switch off certain types of scientific instruments regularly.
• Recycling can lead to impurities that compromise reproducibility, therefore, leading to more experiments and the use of resources.

Emerging themes

Our quantitative and qualitative survey findings also include many examples from the research community of what they are already doing to integrate environmental sustainability into their research programmes. Five main themes emerged:

• Daily actions to reduce consumption of energy, water, plastics and chemicals.
• Monitoring resource use, sharing equipment and leveraging procurement processes.
• Embedding sustainability in research design, planning and reporting.
• Sharing knowledge and best practice, and developing skills.
• Fostering a culture of sustainability in scientific research.

You can find more detail about what people are already doing in section 3.2 of the main report

The challenge is so daunting and multidimensional that I think a lot of my peers feel overwhelmed and don't know where to start. We need to give people actionable information that allows them to make first steps. The sense I have is that in many cases it’s "I didn't know that.." which leads to current practices continuing.

Experienced manager, industry, United States

Researchers face complex and context-dependent challenges in making their research more environmentally sustainable.

The nature of the decisions facing, and options available to, researchers is influenced by geographical location, access to resources, scale of operation, and research field. Survey participants revealed a number of barriers to reducing the environmental impact of their research, including:

• Organisational culture and attitudes.
• Time and money.
• The availability of data, along with knowledge and expertise, to enable informed decision making and prioritisation.
• Navigating the trade-offs between environmental sustainability and other factors including safety, health, regulation, cost and research or application quality.
• "Wasted experiments" due to poor research design and reporting, as well as the duplication of effort in replicating unpublished studies.

More data on sustainable practices could be beneficial for motivating people on what judgements to make when investing their time and money. For example, data on energy consumption of producing disposable plastic equipment vs less durable but reusable glass equipment; or a rough order of importance or effectiveness of various sustainable practices.

PhD student, academia, United Kingdom

Challenges of implementing sustainable laboratory practices

We asked, "to what extent do the following pose challenges to you in implementing sustainable practices in the laboratory?" (Question 15 of the RSC Sustainable Laboratories Researcher Survey, 2021.)

See section 4 of the main report to read more insights into the challenges, barriers and trade-offs people are facing in reducing the environmental impact of their work.

We have just started our Green Chemistry journey and intend to be more sustainable and environmentally friendly in the future.

Experienced manager, academia, United Kingdom

There are many exciting opportunities to reduce the environmental impacts of research.

However, to be successful, these will require multidisciplinary collaborations within and beyond STEM as well as support from the wider ecosystem.

There are opportunities for universities, research institutes, companies, regulators, funders, publishers, and governments to support and enable changes that will result in more sustainable research.

Many of the solutions highlighted in the report require one-off or ongoing financial investments. There is also a significant opportunity for partnership and collaboration to minimise duplication and accelerate progress in improving the environmental sustainability of research.

The real gains are to be made through green chemistry education and a green chemical emphasis on research which translates to greener processes being adopted industrially and as part of a greener wider society.

Early career lecturer, academia, United Kingdom

Opportunities for the research community

• New communities and networks – to enable the development and sharing of good practice
• Education, training and professional development – for people in different roles and at different career stages
• Data, knowledge and tools – gathering and sharing data, resources and tools to enable laboratory environmental sustainability programmes
• Roles, expertise and collaboration – creating and supporting roles wholly or partially dedicated to laboratory environmental sustainability programmes
• Data and digital technologies – harnessing data and digital technologies to record and share sustainability related data, and to optimise experimental design and execution
• Culture, incentives and recognition – recognising and incentivising initiatives and attitudes that work in favour of sustainable research
• New science, engineering and technology solutions – sustainable chemicals, materials and processes, and the application of life cycle and socio-techno economic expertise to scientific research

We explore these opportunities in more detail in section 5 of the main report.

The building works almost like an organism, waking up and going to sleep depending on people’s needs

Peter Licence, Inaugural Director, GSK Carbon Neutral Laboratories for Sustainable Chemistry

The concept of the Carbon Neutral Laboratory originated within GSK, who chose to work in partnership with the University of Nottingham due to its heritage, and continued specialism, in the field of sustainable chemistry. Over the 25-year lifetime of the building, the theory is that its carbon footprint should be zero. With leading energy ratings and accreditations, the Carbon Neutral Laboratory is the pinnacle of sustainable laboratories in terms of its environmental impact and performance.

Peter Licence is a Professor of Chemistry, and the inaugural Director of the GSK Carbon Neutral Laboratory at the University of Nottingham. Having been involved with the design, construction and delivery team, Peter now leads the groups of academics contributing to the project.

According to Peter, the laboratory underpins alternative ways of undertaking chemical research: “It offers a different philosophy for running experiments, projects and groups. It is designed to make people think differently and to impress upon multidisciplinary partnerships the appropriate technologies for solving challenges while putting sustainability at the core.”

Created almost entirely from renewable materials, every component of the building has been evaluated based on its carbon footprint. Peter notes “the building works almost like an organism, waking up and going to sleep depending on people’s needs.”

From undergraduate through to PhD level, the laboratory is training graduates in high quality chemistry and material science through the narrative of sustainability.     

The laboratory has a wide portfolio concerned with real world challenges that need to be addressed, but Peter notes the answer to these problems need to be “smarter, faster and ultimately more sustainable.”

The Carbon Neutral Laboratory is an evolving experiment and the lessons learned will inspire and lead the next generation of laboratories and researchers. Always adapting and learning, the knowledge can be shared through an open-source approach.

Peter reflected on his learnings from the process: “What I have learned from this experiment, is that as a community, we shouldn’t be scared of making changes. Sometimes change is necessary, we need to make the chemistry for tomorrow. To do this we need to have the right approach, in the right environment, in the right facilities.”

We went to see what actually happens to all the waste produced by the university and it was a fantastic eye-opener. It allowed us to go back to the drawing board and sort out our waste procedure

Lee Hibbett, Technical Manager, School of Pharmacy at the University of Nottingham

When the University of Nottingham decided to tackle the lab’s carbon footprint, an inquisitive mind and a series of subtle tweaks were key to maintaining high quality scientific opportunities while improving footprint.

Lee Hibbett is Technical Manager in the School of Pharmacy at the University of Nottingham and Chair of the university’s Technical Sustainability Working Group.

The working group convenes more than 35 technicians to exchange knowledge and advice on how to improve the environmental sustainability of the university’s labs.

Immediately after the launch of the Technical Sustainability Working Group, just over three years ago, the technicians visited the university’s waste contractor. Lee commented: “We went to see what actually happens to all the waste produced by the university and it was a fantastic eye-opener. It allowed us to go back to the drawing board and sort out our waste procedures.”

He has since established processes to increase the amount of plastic and other materials that are recycled. For example, the School of Pharmacy now decontaminates as much plastic and glass waste as it can, which allows it to be recycled. This process alone has enabled the school to increase the amount of lab waste it recycles by up to 30%, rather than sending it all for incineration.

He said the key to reducing the environmental footprint of labs is to question everything: “There’s always an operational need for certain work to be done in a lab and we’re very conscious of that. What we’re trying to do is look at the operational need and ask questions, such as, ‘Why is that piece of kit on all the time? Does it need to be on all the time?’. If the answer is no, we take action to cut our environmental footprint.”

This approach has seen Lee roll out a series of small-scale initiatives to improve the environmental sustainability of day-to-day lab activities – in everything from replacing the School of Pharmacy’s water condensers with air condensers in order to conserve water, to increasing the temperature of certain freezers in order to reduce electricity usage without impacting the samples within and purchasing a solvent recycling system, so solvents can be recycled and not incinerated. Combined, these initiatives have made a big difference.

I've always wanted to look at sustainability as an opportunity rather than the handling of doom and problems. We have an opportunity to do things better rather than just mopping up issues.

Vicky Hilborne, lecturer at the department of chemistry at UCL, and chair of the Analytical Community Council's Sustainability Working Group

Vicky Hilborne is a lecturer within the department of chemistry at University College London (UCL) and chair of the Analytical Community Council’s Sustainability Working Group. She helped design the Royal Society of Chemistry’s international survey on Sustainable Laboratories.

Having studied environmental chemistry herself, Vicky has always been interested in changing the way that STEM subjects are taught in order to put greater emphasis on sustainability in every course and ensure the environmental footprint of research is considered at all times.

She said: "I’ve always wanted to look at sustainability as an opportunity rather than the handling of doom and problems. We have an opportunity to do things better rather than just mopping up issues."

Vicky has designed template teaching materials on sustainability and systems thinking which lecturers of STEM subjects can ‘pick up and drop in’ to their modules, and thereby embed sustainability into the curriculum. The hope is that this will drive a cultural change and get students into the habit of thinking differently.

The teaching materials are being trialed in UCL, the University of Birmingham and Keele University, and so far, the response from students has been fantastic.

"The students think this should have happened years ago," Vicky said, "It’s all about student input and student empowerment because they’re going to be the agents of sustainability in the future, so it’s important that they develop the relevant skills."

Hopefully, the LEAF programme will encourage more labs to engage with sustainable practices and make their contribution towards a greener environment.

Helena Wong, Senior Teaching Laboratory Technician, Physical Chemistry, University College London

Helena Wong has applied for a gold LEAF (Laboratory Efficiency Assessment Framework) award for her lab. She talks us through the process, which involves demonstrating actions taken to improve environmental efficiency under the following categories: Waste, People, Sample and Chemical Management, and Ventilation.

"I have applied for a gold LEAF award for the undergraduate physical chemistry Graham lab at UCL. The five categories that must be fulfilled are Waste, People, Sample and Chemical Management, Equipment and Ventilation. To make the gold criteria I had to demonstrate that the maximum number of sustainability actions were fulfilled.

For the ‘Waste’ category, lab managers are required to provide different waste streams, to demonstrate a reduction in waste produced and an increase in recycled waste. A switch from single use plastic pipettes to glass Pasteur pipettes, glass weighing funnels and reuse of disposable cuvettes resulted in massive reductions in waste. For a teaching lab, such simple measures will result in significant waste reduction. For example, in the 1st year Beer Lambert practical reuse of disposable cuvettes led to a saving of 972 cuvettes. The technical team is constantly reviewing where waste reductions can be made.

Under the 'People' category, an in-person induction on sustainable practices is a prerequisite to working in the UCL Physical Chemistry Lab. The technical team attend monthly department-organised sustainability meetings where best practice and resources are shared. We actively encourage undergraduate students to adopt sustainable practices. Posters of waste streams and Green Chemistry have been produced and displayed around the chemistry labs, guiding students to use the sustainable practices described. After all, they will be the chemists of the future. I also prioritise suppliers who use sustainable packaging and recycle chemical containers, often challenging them to adopt sustainable practice.

'Sample and Chemical Management' regarding a sustainability gold standard (LEAF) award: I keep a local chemical inventory that is audited, annually checking labels and condition of the chemicals. All chemicals are catalogued with a specific code per item and the departmental Quartzy  list updated once the audit is completed. Redundant chemicals identified are offered to the rest of the department. There is also a practice of repurposing excess solutions, any surplus acid, bases or general solutions are diluted down or concentrated up for use in another experiment or for cleaning instead of being disposed. A back up cold storage was sourced should our fridge fail, minimising potential degradation of chemicals.

Equipment is turned off immediately when not in use reducing energy usage and phantom power draw while maximising the lifetime of the equipment. Surplus and redundant equipment is recycled via Warp It Ltd. An example of this was finding a new ‘home’ for redundant water purifying cartridges and acquiring vial trays for teaching. Outside of teaching term, specialist equipment like potentiostats, conductivity meters and spectrophotometers etc are available for research staff to borrow through our lab’s loans system.

For the ‘Ventilation’ category, the fume cupboards are serviced annually, the phase velocity is set to 0.4 m/s and the sashes are always closed when not in use. Any malfunction that affects the ventilation or services in the lab is immediately reported to estates. Vacuum pumps and inhouse vacuum are always used with a -78˚cold trap to condense any volatile vapours. The acetone used in the foam Dewars is recycled for future use in cold traps.

With the actions taken above I hope to be successful in my application for the gold LEAF award. I have also volunteered to deliver some LEAF peer auditing of labs which will allow the community to share best practice and learn from one another. Hopefully, the LEAF programme will encourage more labs to engage with sustainable practices and make their contribution towards a greener environment."

A PhD student who was new to the department and had fresh eyes on things was quite shocked about how much plastic we were sending to the autoclave to then go to landfill or incineration. They said: ‘Can we do this any better?’, which is a fantastic thing to say because we want people to challenge and rock the boat.

James Fox, Deputy Operations Manager, Biology Operations Team at the University of York

Cutting plastic waste and increasing recycling are two things we can all do to help the environment. Laboratories can have a particularly big impact – good or bad – given the volume of material that some use. While ordinary plastics were being recycled at the University of York, one student expressed disappointment at seeing high-quality virgin plastic being autoclaved and then landfilled or incinerated. This sparked a series of changes to reduce the institution's environmental impact.

Tasked with coming up with a new approach for recycling this plastic without any health and safety issues, the student started an experiment. He trialled different detergents and concentrations to find a solution that cleaned up lab equipment ahead of it going to waste contractors without resorting to autoclaving, which uses high-pressure steam to sterilise.

New plastic-specific bins and additional training have helped people get a better understanding of which types of waste are recyclable, while keeping waste contractors safe and adhering to regulations.

“We had to be satisfied that we were decontaminating our plastic sufficiently and that people receive sufficient training and plastic segregation so that we're not contaminating the waste stream so that the waste contractor doesn't take it,” said James Fox (right), Deputy Operations Manager in the University of York’s biology department.

“Touch wood, we've been pretty good with what we've sent to them. They've been quite happy with it. It just takes a little bit of work to get it off the ground.”

This is not the only initiative that the University of York has implemented to improve its sustainability credentials. Staff have also looked at their use of sharps bins and have made a series of small changes that they hope will have a cumulative impact.

As well as investing in new, decantable sharps bins, they have also reduced the number used in the labs by reallocating some elsewhere the institution’s Faculty of Sciences. Staff have also been trained to make sure they know which materials can go in reusable bins and which are for autoclaving and single-use receptacles.

James said that having a really good relationship with the local waste handler has been key to making some of these improvements and noted that being close to a local site has made easier to implement. In terms of the benefits, he sees two big ones.

“Definitely cost saving,” he added. “To recoup our service contract charges for our autoclaves, we charge users a charge to autoclave their waste so users - if they are recycling their lab plastic - they're not having to autoclave it. There's a cost saving there. The cost of buying detergent is significantly less than the cost to autoclave the plastic so there is a small cost saving to the user.

“In terms of a cultural thing, I think a lot of people feel quite guilty about the amount of waste that we create in a biology department. We haven't solved the issue, we still create lots of waste, but you can visually see the green waste bags that are full of plastic that are going for recycling. That is quite cheering, a happy thing for people to see.”